A Recap

This has been, by far, the most eventful summer I have had at BIO. My last summer here, in 2014, I was deployed on the BIObus for our trip out west and got so see some pretty amazing things, but this year has been far more jam-packed. I have been out in the field for a variety of reasons this summer.

Earlier in the summer, when I was on the BIObus, we were conducting aquatic sampling and soil invertebrate sampling (two groups we hadn’t ever focused on before). It was an amazing learning experience working with new kinds of traps, new kinds of procedures for collecting and storing, and not to mention fun to be working on something we hadn’t tried before. I got to go to a park I had always wanted to go to, and visit a conservation area that I’d never heard of. Both exceeded expectations. They were beautiful and diverse in their ecology and the pictures we got were amazing.

Doing educational outreach at Pinery Provincial Park

I then had the opportunity to work side-by-side with Kareina and Dan doing freshwater mussel sampling. We were teamed up with the expert mussel collectors from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) who were doing their own studies on mussel size and habitat relations, and who were super encouraging. We learned from them about the most common types of mussels in the rivers we were sampling, how to set up a mussel sampling site, and how to care for the mussels while we worked out our sampling process. It was a unique learning experience and I am excited to work with them all again soon.

Mussel sampling in the Grand River area

Then shortly after that I began helping out occasionally with rare Charitable Research Reserve’s sampling. I had a few good days of hiking through beautiful wildflower fields to collect bucket traps, service malaise traps and pitfalls. We were sampling and scoping out all the locations in which we could bring experts on the day of the upcoming bioblitz we were hosting. I’d never been to a bioblitz, so being one of the main collectors and sorters for the day was pretty amazing. Watching people come out to do science is always fun and we upped the rare’s species count by over 1000 species!

Sorting through samples at the rare BioblitzSucking up insects from my net with an aspirator at rare Charitable Research Reserve

And just when I thought things couldn’t get any more interesting, the University of Guelph hosted the 6th International Barcode of Life Conference. BIO suddenly became a whirlwind of activity while we tried to finish all of our rare processing and imaging, clean up the lab (during active fieldwork), make sure we had interesting demonstrations for people during tours and other such things.

This summer has been the wildest and wackiest so far, but I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I’m back in the fall as a work study student so hopefully, you’ll all hear from me again soon!

The Tans Will Fade, but the Barcodes Will Last Forever

The Tans Will Fade, but the Barcodes Will Last Forever

This will be my final blog of the season, as the summer wraps up and all the students head back to school. This past week was my final week working in BIO as a student, but luckily for me I get to come back as a full time employee! My summer at BIO was absolutely amazing, between learning how to work in the lab, and the multiple field work experiences I got to have. I collected aquatic invertebrates on the BIObus when I went to Point Pelee National Park, set up bucket and malaise traps at rare Charitable Research Reserve, and collected as many insects as possible at the rare Bioblitz! My favourite part of field work was my trip on the BIObus. We got to see three beautiful parks, go canoeing as part of our collecting, and had lots of campfires once our sorting was done at the end of the day.

Josh and I canoeing out to collect some aquatic invertebrates in Point Pelee National ParkDragonfly in Point Pelee National ParkA stinging wasp grabbing some dinner in Point Pelee National Park

Most of my time this summer was spent in the lab, processing specimens, tissue sampling and labeling larger insects, and voucher recovering specimens coming back from being barcoded. I worked on processing Canadian malaise traps this summer, from British Columbia, Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Ontario. Throughout the four months of the summer, I created 319 plates of specimens, labeled 42 boxes of specimens, tissue sampled 70 boxes of specimens, and voucher recovered 311 plates of specimens. Each plate/box contains 95 insect specimens, so this means that I personally put 30 305 individual insects into plates, put 3990 labels into boxes, pulled 6650 legs off of insects, and voucher recovered 29 545 specimens. This comes out to a total of 70 490 insect specimens I prepared between May and August. That’s a lot of insects! If you imagine that we have seven other students doing the exact same thing, along with all of the full time staff that process as well, we end up having a huge number of specimens, and a very efficient team!

Trap FILLED with Diptera (flies) waiting to be pinnedMicroplates and matrix boxes stacked in the archives

I learned a lot this summer and had some really great experiences. I hope you guys enjoyed learning about my adventures this summer!